Diplomatic Communication, a Lesson From History

For those of you asking “what is the big deal about the Secretary of State using private email?” Please humor me on this one for a few moments and allow me to make a few points.

I have not always been an auctioneer. I spent a good part of my younger years working in an area known as communication security (or COMSEC to you military types). A big part of work in the field of COMSEC is to prevent Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) data from being collected. If you have never heard of either COMSEC or SIGINT it would be because most of this type work is done under a Top Secret clearance. I myself held a TS CRYTO COSMIC clearance
(a Top Secret Clearance with access to TS material from all NATO countries at a very wide code word level.

Why do I bring this up? SIGINT agents and officers spend millions of dollars and risk countless lives to gain access to government communications at the level of the Secretary of State. Want proof?

Let’s start with the Zimmermann Telegram.
Here is a quote from the US National Archives I link to below:
“Between 1914 and the spring of 1917, the European nations engaged in a conflict that became known as World War I. While armies moved across the face of Europe, the United States remained neutral. In 1916 Woodrow Wilson was elected President for a second term, largely because of the slogan “He kept us out of war.” Events in early 1917 would change that hope. In frustration over the effective British naval blockade, in February Germany broke its pledge to limit submarine warfare. In response to the breaking of the Sussex pledge, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Germany.

In January of 1917, British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, von Eckhardt, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause. This message helped draw the United States into the war and thus changed the course of history.”

Please note that this communication happened between two Foreign Ministers, people who would be at the exact level of Hillary Clinton.

Perhaps you have heard of the Walker Spy ring? This was a ring that committed what the US Naval Archives calls ” the biggest espionage leak in U.S. Navy history”. I was involved personally in this matter as the soldier who was called upon by the US Army to fix the problem and allow us to communicate TS FLASH message traffic after the problem was uncovered. Why does this matter? Walker and his spy ring allowed our enemies to read our TS messages, messages that were sent using the KW-7 (Orestes) a machine I was very familiar with as a US Army E5 CRYPTO tech.

How does this relate to Hillary? The KW7 was used not only to encrypt Military TOP SECRET communications but was also used by the State Department to communicate between Washington and our Embassies.
We use CRYPTO gear for this type of communication for reason.

I have been out of this game since 1986, but we used 128 bit encryption for this type of communication back then. People died because of Walkers breach, and Walker went to Federal prison for life. He died in prison on August 28, 2014. I had to sign a non-disclosure form regarding this matter in 1986 that covered 20 years. I have known what happened in great detail for a very long time.

I could go on and on and on about this subject, we could talk about the Enigma machine, the biggest secret of WWII still classified until the 1970’s
and how breaking it and other codes produced intelligence classified at the MAGIC/ULTRA level. Intel that won the war. MAGIC intel included diplomatic communication decrypts made possible by breaking the Japaneese Purple code. Once again, showing diplomatic communication was THE HIGHEST level of security.

Yes, Hillary has assured us that she did not pass classified information by email, that remains to be seen. Here is what I do know, this is serious, this is very serious, if you don’t think so you are ignoring history. We were at war in two different places while or Secretary of State was using un-encrypted email. As a former US Army CRYTO tech. SGT E5 this alarms me, it should alarm you too.